By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Wednesday, September 25, 2024
Photo: Fred Mullane for Tennis Channel Facebook
Tennis Channel has returned to a familiar face as its new host.
Bill Simon has been appointed Interim President of TC, Tennis Channel announced today.
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Simon joined the network as CFO in 2005 and has served in a variety of executive roles at Tennis Channel in recent years.
Here’s the Tennis Channel announcement released this afternoon:
Sinclair, Inc. has named Tennis Channel’s Bill Simon as interim network president. Simon has been in a senior leadership role since joining the channel as CFO in 2005, in recent years serving as EVP, COO and CFO. He has been directly involved in key decisions that have guided the network over the past two decades and will oversee all aspects of its business.
Simon takes over about three weeks after TC’s parent company Sinclair axed its longtime CEO Ken Solomon.
According to one Wall Street Journal report earlier this month.
The newspaper reported that Sinclair executives saw Solomon’s work with Dr. Phil as “a growing distraction.”
Meanwhile, sources close to Solomon claim he served similar roles as an advisory board member during his tenure at TC and it wasn’t an issue until Sinclair began looking for a reason to make a move.
Tennis Channel grew its audience during Solomon’s tenure, though it has not been profitable since its inception under the founder Steve Bellamy.
Media giant Sinclair is reportedly trying to offload Tennis Channel, and Solomon’s ouster may have been part of its streamlining process in preparation for a sale.
However, in an interview with interview with SportsBusiness Journal Sinclair COO Rob Weisbord downplayed Solomon’s role over the past 18 months, saying Simon and an executive team have run TC’s day-to-day operations while Simon has been the “spokesman for the network.”
Weisbord told SportsBusiness Journal that while Solomon was “the face of the network,” an executive team was actually running the network. Weisbord said a senior management team of Simon, Senior Vice President of Production Bob Whyley, Senior Vice President David Edges, Senior Vice President of International Programming Andy Reif, Senior National Vice President of Sports Sales Irv Schulman and Vice President of Marketing Christina Tesauro has run the network, suggesting that Solomon’s role had diminished over the past year and a half.
“When Sinclair is writing a check for an employee, we expect 100% of the focus to be on what we’re paying them to be and not have multiple focuses,” Weisbord said. “We need to focus on the assets we own.
“Ken was certainly the face of the Tennis Channel, but it takes a village to run a network.”
Sinclair COO Weisbord also said SportBiznes newspaper that the company has “never publicly stated” Tennis Channel is for sale.
Despite that statement, it has been reported that Sinclair is looking to sell TC, which launched PickleballTV last year in an effort to capitalize on pickleball’s domestic growth.
“We had some introductory questions. If we can get accretive value for any asset, we’re always open to looking at it,” Weisbord said. “Right now, we’re not focused on a sale — if that happens, great — but we’re focused on we own this operation and that we are really good at expanding tennis.
Weisbord also points out that Tennis Channel International is now available in eight countries, and Sinclair sees it as a source of potential international growth, although none of those eight markets are as large as the United States.
In 2016, Sinclair Broadcast Group bought the Tennis Channel for $350 million.
Three months before the 2016 sale, The Wall Street Journal reported that former Tennis Channel majority owners Apollo Global Management, Bain Capital Ventures, Battery Ventures, CCMP Capital and Columbia Capital were in sales talks with Sinclair at a price sought “north of $500 million.” “
While the final sale price is much lower than that, Sinclair offered Tennis Channel a significantly larger media platform.
When Sinclair acquired TC, executives envisioned increased exposure and brand opportunities across multiple platforms by generating increased advertising revenue for both Tennis Channel and Tennis Channel Plus, the network’s subscription companion channel.
“In Sinclair we have found the perfect owner-partner to accelerate the scaling of the Tennis Channel brand and expand our sport’s fan base to the next level,” former Tennis Channel CEO Ken Solomon said in a 2016 statement. Sinclair’s size and unique position in the media ecosystem will facilitate significant distribution growth to parity with our competitive set and expand our unique brand assets and value as the go-to destination for all things tennis in the US and beyond .”
Launched on May 15, 2003 by founder Steve Bellamy, the Tennis Channel has added health and fitness, travel and pop culture programming to its tennis coverage in an effort to expand viewership without alienating the core viewers who still come to the Channel to watch tennis.
